


The Scars of Magic

by Lunarium



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Horror, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mad Scientists, Science Experiments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:46:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8400472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/pseuds/Lunarium
Summary: A kade has overshadowed the tank while the crew were on their way out of Odense. Captured, Reynir is being used for science experiments while his boyfriend betrays them and now works for the same man who murdered the crew. Something isn’t right about this picture…





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2016 Spook Me Ficathon! :D My chosen prompt was "Mad Scientist." 
> 
> I also used the following prompts as inspiration: 59. No Way Out (SSSS 100 Prompt Challenge) and "Mercy Killing" (for H/C Bingo). 
> 
>  
> 
> Please note: This story is a work of Horror. I purposely set the warnings to "Choose Not To Warn" as I fear giving any warning tags may give spoilers. But do take this as a warning, that you may encounter _anything_ in this story. Read at your own risk. :) 
> 
>  
> 
> Many thanks to Yuuago for beta-reading this!

The inside of the cell blurred back into existence. Blinking the tears out of his aching eyes, Reynir glanced around at the chipped jaded green walls of his prison, shivering in the cold, though from the back of his mind to the tip of his tongue he tried to will the rest of his stupid, lanky body to make no move. Any, especially sudden, will draw them out, like a gunshot aiming straight for his head triggered by his merest foolish step.

And there would be no one to come defend him against any injustice inflicted on him. Against any foe he could hold his own, but more difficult was to raise a hand against an old friend turned enemy. 

A wave of steel-like cold jolted through his ribs and he gasped in pain before he was able to stop himself.

Like a flash, the grey form of his once lover appeared behind the black bars. Eyes flashing blue, Lalli’s face was set in an unreadable mask as he regarded Reynir with utmost hatred.

“I’m sorry,” Reynir wished to say, but words failed him. Perhaps they had taken out his vocal cords long ago. He could not recall now. He could not recall much. Sometimes it seemed only yesterday he had beheld the remains of the former brave Captain Sigrun, had come across Emil’s scalp (the only thing he ever could find of him), caught glimpse of what he presumed was Mikkel’s arm. And Tuuri—sweet, kind Tuuri, who Reynir’s own lover killed. Lalli, Tuuri’s own cousin, committed the act with no mercy before his new master.

Their deaths at least were swift. Valttu did not desire much from them. They were not mages, though he was curious to see Tuuri break for want of shaking any magic from her before tossing her away with the rest of them.

Reynir was the only one of them left. Never mind Lalli; he had betrayed them, bedding the very kade who had overtaken their tank, intercepting them midway through their journey out of Odense.

He should hate Lalli. But his heart could not allow him. He extended his arms as Lalli unlocked the bars, mouthed, _Please_ , but Lalli’s eyes turned colder as he grabbed his arms with a vice-like grip and dragged him out of the cell.

*

The operating theater has become disturbingly familiar to Reynir. Colder than the rest of the forsaken, empty lab, void of any staff save for the mad kade and Lalli. The instruments were only occasionally cleaned, for Reynir was their only patient. Pieces of him were smeared across multiple instruments, devices, and the metal plate used to collect samples for biopsies.

Strapped to the same cold table, completely bare as he was shown no mercy for a chance at modesty, he was opened up alive for the kade to examine, hungrily exploring for the secrets of magic inside the Icelandic specimen before him. He was never given anything for the pain, thus having to endure every agonizing inch the cold metal scraped against him. Sometimes, mercifully, his mind would black out. Other times the gods were not so forgiving.

Often Valttu would remove an organ to further study while keeping Reynir alive by some magical or artificial means before making him whole again. 

Each such experience were utter hell to endure, but Reynir had become so used to the violation that the pain of being ripped open was secondary to the betrayal of the young man standing just a few feet away. They had been kissing just hours before the attack, and Lalli’s head had been nestled on his lap as he slept peacefully just moments before the shadow swallowed the tank.

Reynir still remembered the way the crew appeared right before: Tuuri at the driver’s seat, Sigrun’s hand lovingly placed on her shoulder, Emil glancing out the window but not seeing, his mind far in some happier place thinking up a happier future ahead, Mikkel flipping through one of the books they had gathered from their missions. They were content, cheeks rosy-red and warm from their sweaters and the heater of their tank. Not a drop of blood on them, not a strand of hair out of place.

And in the end, Lalli stood and stared as Reynir lay, cold and shivering, as Valttu exposed him more, little by little with the scalpel. Lalli’s eyes burned with a hatred all too familiar in some old dream, though it was something Reynir had though had been completely thawed by now. How quickly it took Lalli to forget him. 

He wished for death, but the serum Valttu injected into him always prevented him from bleeding. Open and sore and heart utterly shattered, he must endure this cycle day after day.

*

At times the two men abandoned Reynir on the operating table, but he could witness everything that went on behind the screened door of the fevered and violent intimacy between his former lover and the kade. He knew better than to look; the heartbreak was enough to take, the sunken feeling in his heart, and the butterflies, once fluttering, now rotting dead in his gut. But even if he closed his eyes or glanced away he could hear Lalli’s passionate cries and the rhythmic pounding against the wall.

Valttu was brutal, leaving no question of the source of the black and blue bruises on Lalli’s thin neck, the tiny bald patches on his head where he had completely torn his hair off. And Lalli took it all, drinking in Valttu’s violent love with more vigor than he had ever taken in Reynir’s softer and gentler adoration. It was as though he desired for a type of lover to slowly destroy him. If Reynir had known from the beginning, he would have saved himself the heartbreak.

 _Why can’t I let it go?_

Sometimes they quarreled behind the door, though Reynir could not catch a single word. But he saw the hand fly and strike Lalli across the face, and every part of him prayed to his gods and to Lalli’s gods, if they would have mercy on an Icelander, that this would be the moment Lalli would turn his loyalty against the kade. But instead of betrayal Lalli lunged forward, seeking out Valttu’s lips, and soon his hands and lips travelled lower in seeking pardon.

Reynir would scream, if he could.

*

Valttu and Lalli took their pleasure over Reynir’s body.

With his chest opened up, Reynir lay there watching as Valttu took Lalli by the hand, a sinisterly affectionate gleam in his eyes, and led him towards the table. He guided Lalli’s hand over Reynir’s beating heart, having the fingers ghost right over the tissue before Lalli’s fingers slide over the surface. Reynir winced. 

Lalli resided there, in his heart, once before. Took the full space of it. Perhaps it was foolish—they knew each other just for a few weeks—but they were both young and Reynir fell for him utterly and completely.

Now he stood there, without emotion on his bruised face, touching the very heart that skipped beats at the mere sight of him and the sound of his voice, whether or not Reynir could understand the words. 

“How does it feel, beloved?” Valttu asked.

Lalli met his gaze, his smile as coldly affectionate as Valttu’s. “Red and disgusting, just like the rest of him.”

Chuckling, Valttu lifted his hand away. “We will be removing more of his organs for examination. I will provide you with the list. I trust you can handle this by yourself?”

Lalli’s eyes darted towards Reynir. There was nothing behind those eyes. “Of course.”

A knot twisted in Reynir’s stomach and he pulled at his binds, whimpering. This was too much. Again he prayed for death to claim him, to fall into his gods’ arms and be taken away from this.

But as his eyes fell back, meeting with Lalli’s, Lalli’s voice spoke, clear and loud, though his lips never moved.

_“Watch it.”_

Searching the pale grey eyes, Reynir sought for any explanation, but no sooner had he opened his mouth before Lalli’s glare bore into him.

_“Watch it.”_

Something sharp slipped into his arm and the entire world dissolved into nothingness.

*

“Wake up.”

The voice, low and parched from the many times it had been choked by strong hands, startle Reynir awake. Gasping for deep breaths, he glanced around himself, immediately examining himself to see what Lalli had taken out. But his body was already sewn shut.

Lalli, on the other hand, was covered in blood, and his skin sported a grey tinge, blue around the eyes.

“Hurry,” Lalli said, struggling for breath. “Before he finds out.”

“Lalli?”

Reynir shook his head, confused and unable to let his heart believe. “What—I’m speaking! I thought I couldn’t, that you two took out my tongue or something or—”

“I had to do something to keep you silent the whole time.”

“Why?”

Lalli chuckled darkly. “You don’t remember?”

“How Valttu attacked us? How you betrayed us? I remember all that.”

Lalli’s eyes flashed. “You’re dying, idiot. A few weeks back you realized you contracted the Rash but you kept it secret from us all, except me. I knew you were dying and afraid. I told you to just hold it out, but your mind snapped. _You_ created _this_.” Lalli motioned around them. “You willed your Haven to change in ways that were unnatural, and it left you—and all of us—vulnerable to attack by that damn kade!”

“Haven?” Reynir said, dazed. “Oh! We’re—we’re in the dreamworld! I’m so stupid! This is why I can understand you and Valttu! I never thought about it before! I was always in pain, or under a drug’s spell!” He bit his lower lip as he thought more of what Lalli told him. “I put us in this mess?”

Lalli nodded his head slowly. “They died by your own magic. The Haven ripped through into our reality! The nonbelievers didn’t stand a moment’s chance! The captain fought before she fell, and her lover— _my own cousin, you bastard!_ —tried what she could before she was killed!”

“But Valttu—I could never have imagined one like him!”

“Onni taught me that kades like him are attracted to where there is profound magic; they envy those greater than them. And with you sick, he could tinker with you until he uncovered all the secrets of magic. I could do nothing but show loyalty to him just to keep tabs on you. I let him use me in any way— _placate_ him, Turri would say—just to keep myself alive so you would not be alone with him.”

This confession was worse than any betrayal. Feeling like he was kicked in the stomach, Reynir gave Lalli a good look and taking in what the scars of magic unchecked had inflicted on him: a black eye, bruises, gaunt face and thinning frame, the greying skin, the bleeding white coat.

“You did all this, and I thought you had—you didn’t even touch me after he drugged me, did you? That’s your blood? Did you remove a part of yourself in my stead?”

Lalli smiled weakly.

“Lalli!”

“We need to go,” Lalli said. “Now. Once Valttu finds out what I did, he’ll want us both dead.”

 _But what_ did _you do?_ Reynir wanted to ask, but he had no heart to say any more. Lalli took his hand and led him out of the operating theater, past hall after freezing hall, making their way through the maze with the too-bright light above searing his eyes with the constant warning that, at any moment, Valttu may be behind them.

Lalli’s grip on his hand lessened the longer they ran, his gait staggering with the blood loss, but Lalli pushed himself. Reynir was tempted to embrace him, lift him off the cold ground and carry him in whichever direction Lalli needed him to go. But before he could even contemplate the matter further, Lalli pulled him into a broom closet. Barring the door shut, Lalli immediately went search for something behind some dusty crates.

“I was able to keep this hidden in here,” Lalli said. “Your nightmare hasn’t destroyed it, thankfully.”

A few trinkets fell out, including Lalli’s now fully broken rifle, but from the shadow he produced a small gun which Reynir remembered seeing Sigrun carry with her before. 

“One bullet inside,” Lalli said, eyeing Reynir.

“For Valttu?”

Lalli shook his head. Reynir’s eyes widened.

“We may still wake up,” Lalli said. “We’re trapped, but there might be a way out of your nightmare. We might be able to get back to our world.”

“And the others? Might they be okay?”

“They…might,” Lalli said hesitantly. “I don’t know _how much_ your Haven has altered reality. Perhaps they really died. Maybe everything is fine and we’re both trapped in a coma. I don’t know a lot about this, but we have no other way out of this mess. Either we attempt to wake up, or we both die.”

Reynir flinched. “Can’t we fight Valttu together? You can use magic on him, can’t you? You’re better at magic than me!”

Lalli’s lips thinned. “You’re dying, Reynir, remember? If we do wake up, we still have to deal with that. You’re dying no matter what. And after I—after what I’ve done to myself back there, I don’t have much time left either. We are worth more alive to him than dead, if we can’t get back to the waking world.”

He motioned to the gun. “I can get the final bullet to pierce us both.”

Really, Reynir couldn’t understand why he was shaking so much. He had prayed for death so often while strapped to that damned table, but the prospect of such a violent end, even as an act of mercy killing or means of escape, horrified him beyond measure.

A thin, shaky hand wiped away his tears. Though the lips which touched his were cold, the kiss was the warmest he ever remembered from Lalli.

“It’ll be okay,” Lalli assured him. “Now, close your eyes.”

*

He had Reynir sit cross-legged, as it would make him as restful as possible and Lalli could stand just right above him. Cradling Reynir’s head in his hand, Lalli brought the gun up against the base of Reynir’s skull, calculating the best point that would ensure instant death for first Reynir and then himself.

He kissed Reynir’s cheeks a few more times, missing the scent and taste of him after the days spent under the harsh and brutal grip of the kade. He had seen Reynir’s heartbreak, but saying anything to him before would have risked too much. He had to wait for the right opportunity, after he inflicted revenge on Valttu and run off with Reynir—but to where?

Somewhere off in the distance came a rumble, a disturbance his very bones could feel. Valttu had found out; he was coming, and fast.

 _I never hated you_ , Lalli thought as he studied Reynir’s face. He brought their lips together one more time, kept them there; this position will help with the murder-suicide. Reynir wrapped his arms around Lalli in a tight embrace. No fear was in his hold, just a lover’s touch and the trust Reynir placed in him. With his free arm, Lalli returned the warm embrace.

Valttu’s presence drew nearer.

Lalli squeezed the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> Did the story frighten you? Horrify you? I do apologize. If you are looking for something to make you laugh after that...ending, I did write [The Things You See In A Graveyard](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8400547) as a companion piece, meant as a humorous Halloween tale for you to enjoy after reading this fic or to enjoy on its own. :) Have a fun and safe Halloween, dear readers!


End file.
